ABSTRACT
This chapter explains story of informality in Hout Bay through an analysis of the dominant forms of governance affecting small-scale fishers in the community. It discusses the evolution of small-scale fishing policy, showing how this form of developmental governance has ultimately denied long-standing fishers the right to fish. The chapter explores how fishers experience weak representative and participatory democracy but strong market governance, and how this combination has led to rising informality and even a politics of criminalisation from the state and society. It shows how weak state rule and strong market governance produce the conditions that make informal and illegal livelihoods inevitable. The poachers explained that they have formed their own association to represent those who want to move from poaching into abalone farming, calling themselves the Hout Bay Aqua Farmers. Even if fishers have other livelihood strategies, the income they can gain from the illegal market makes poaching an appealing choice.
